(Jesus) replied, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

There are two ways of understanding. Or more. One of them is hearing, what is said, the other one is doing what has been spoken about. Even the first one isn't evident. How often are words distorted, misunderstood, ridiculed. To understand, what somebody is saying is already a great thing. But to then go and forget all about it is not the reaction, Jesus is expecting. Blessed are those who hear, meaning understand what has been talked about, and who go and do, what needs to be done.
If I understand, that lying or betraying someone is sinful behaviour, to say I am sorry isn't enough. I have to change that behaviour.
In the doing there is much happiness, blessing and contentement. To do something God wants me to do is a reward in itself, even if the whole world stands up against it. Blessed are those who hear and do.

1 Cor. 13:4,7 Love is patient. Love is kind. It bears all, it hopes all, it endures all.

I just moved. It wasn't as much work as I thought it might be and it went quite well. But moving made me feel like a leaf in the wind again. So dependant on a lot of things I have no control over. I am so glad God is in control in the end. Even where adverse winds seem to blow me into directions I dislike. God knows. He allows. All the pain and frustration. The crushed hopes and shattered illusions and lost days. "Like gold needs to be melted in the fire to be pure, so I need this adversity to be purified, refined, cleansed. - To be honest, as honest as I can think right now - I probably desrve much worse for all the times I denied Jesus, like Peter in the courtyard. Scared for my own skin. My success, my populatity, my survival. That white lie, it doesn't hurt, does it? God will understand. Won't he?
He will understand. He knows we can't help it. We are doomed if left to ourselves. But Jesus showed us a ways to come back: Be forgiven and forgive. Both are not always easy to come by. And I still feel blown around by many hostile winds.
I see pictures of tornados, how they kill or destroy or cause much anxiety and trouble. Whether God's wind or not, winds can have quite an impact. To trust God doesn't come easy or naturally. But I can do it. And so can you.

1 Cor 13:4 Love is kind.

My heart so often seems to fly on every wind coming by. Have you ever felt that way? Scripture says, love is kind. Am I always? What, if my heart gets blown away, when I seem to loose love like a glove forgot on a park bench? And where is God's kindness to me when I am in pain and need, want or fear? Are they God's kindness to me?
Paul wrote, that being in all kinds of suffering is building a godly character. So is it a grace to be suffering? Paul said too: Give thanks for all things. That is not very easy. Not when I am confused and hurting, when the world seems to run a course I cannot follow. Give thanks for pain and sorrow? Even feeling honored because they are God's kindness to me?
And what about those around me. When someone is really in need and pain, suffering, be it on the outside through torture or hunger or nakedness or be it on the inside through loneliness, depression or abuse. Can i say: Rejoice, this is God's kindness to you? For we know, that God loves at all times. Many have postulated that as a huge problem. Why God allows so much pain.
If now I say, it is even a grace and a kindness, will I laughed at or cut out like Jesus was? Maybe that's the reason why they did put Jesus on the cross. Too strange seems this. Too much is our live circling around well-being in this desolate place of a world. And if that suffering where the road to heaven, could I embrace it as God's kindness to me? Could you? God is love. So we should take all from his loving hand with thanks.
The happy times and the times we feel sorry for ourselves. Maybe that is a big sin. For it would doubt God's eternal love.